Having recommended a book of criticism and received no response, I continue my
investigation like a man exploring a canyon. I wonder if chewing is the origin
of criticism. The ancient spur may of course have been visual—look, that is
more useful or (why not?) more beautiful than that…don’t you love the way our
Neanderthal cousins use their putters?—but I suspect that the thing one notices
with cheap cuts of meat well cooked—that they’re wonderful except for the bits
one spits out—may well have led to the first criticism. “Nice animal this, but
a tad gristly. Nothing one, when asked to be in charge of cooking, can do in
the way of stomping it or adding leaves. Essentially the problem is the part
of the animal that we are given. Were I tribal leader I might not have this
kind of experience, but we of the lumpenproletariat get what comes, with ten
percent to them what carries it from the fire.” These thoughts arrive from the
appearance in our supermarkets of (to me) a new category of dead animal,
“petite sirloin,” which of course suggests that sirloin is not, as it sounds,
really quite masculine. It is entirely possible that American supermarkets
have been using this category for years; my allergy to commercial shopping
places often causes me to rush round them. Those who know me will wonder why
commercial shopping places are different in my mind from Costco and estate
sales, both of which I am content to explore, within defined time limits. I
think the proper answer is that if I told you the answer I’d have to chop you
into a petite sirloin.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
